BJCP Exams

Last year I took the BJCP beer exam for the first time. The test is pretty detailed and takes more effort than one might expect. First, the questions are fairly detailed essay questions. There are only nine of them, but each requires quite detailed responses. Since the test is only 3 hours long that breaks down to something like 15 minutes for each question (there is a multiple choice section too).

If that were not enough, during the exam they bring you four beers to evaluate, these responses are also evaluated. While you are tasting the beers, a National level judge is in the next room doing the same thing. Your evaluation is then checked against thiers to determine your grade on that part.

When I took the exam, I did not score as well as I wanted too. My combined score was in the mid 60's. The tasting score was higher, but the written portion is waited as 70% of the score. True to form for me, most of the information gelled in my head about two months after the exam was over.

This comming April I plan on taking the exam again and this time I have a stategy. There were many things I spent time studying last time that I am going to blow off this time around. For example last time I tried to memorize the stats for every subcatagory of beer. Turns out there is a distinct list of beers that are part of the exam pool, so this time I will focus on those beers. Also there are several "compare and contrast" questions in the pool. This time I plan to have a list of three beers memorized for each of these questions. Then I will only have to write what I know rather than trying to think of three beers each time.

The other major thing that I am going to do is blow off the tasting portion of the exam. I have a decent enough score on that part and it will not do much to pull up my exam even if I score perfectly on it. When they calculate your current score they take the HIGHEST score from each section and use it. So if I get a score in the mid 80's, I can get my score up quite a bit.

The other nice thing is that if I should get a great written score, but not quite enough to get what I want for a score, I can then take the tasting portion without worrying about the writting. Thus I can work on one section at a time until I get them where I want.

The only fly in ointment here is that I am going to be taking the BJCP mead exam in March so I will have to devote some time to that as well. But I am a fairly decent mead maker and that exam is pass/fail at 60% with no tasting portion.